The Protector of the Tablet
by lightningnation
Summary: Two years after Sadie and Carter defeat Apophis, rebels have discovered that the Tablet of Ahkmenrah has the power to revive the dead. Now the House of Life has to stop the rebels from getting hold of the Tablet. An unlikely hero will step up to be the protector of the Tablet, and stop a formidable enemy from coming back to life.
1. Our Plan Goes Horribly Wrong

**A/N: Hello anybody who thinks that a Kane Chronicles and Night at the Museum fic is possibly a good idea (It totally is and that why I wrote this fic duh). I'm sorta obsessed with NatM and I was struggling to find any fics that caught my eye and then I though hmm… what if…. Kane chronicles crossover.. and then I thought about it more and I was like….. Cleo is a babe so she'll be one of the main characters. And Ahkmenrah will be another MC too bcus…. I luv him….. and so… this was born! I hope you like it, and remember: I live for constructive criticism! Also u do not know how long I took trying to think of a chapter name IT WAS NOT EASY.**

_CHAPTER 1_

_CLEO_

_Our Plan Goes Horribly Wrong_

I was scrolling down the screen on my laptop, my eyes scanning through the words at a rapid pace. I had an array of books spread out across the wooden table I was hunched over. The books had words in both Hieratic (which was a simplified version of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs) and English.

I was tasked to find out all I could about the Tablet of Ahkmenrah, and to find out about its current whereabouts, so we could stage a siege and, well, for lack of a better word- _steal _it.

I could only hope that we weren't too late to do it, otherwise everything we had fought to do 2 years ago would have all been for naught, when Sadie and Carter Kane had figured out how to defeat Apophis, or the literal embodiment of chaos itself, who would have eaten the sun and destroyed everything in the world, if the Kane siblings hadn't destroyed him first.

And now, we had got wind of a minority Apophis' old followers are planning to use the Tablet of Ahkmenrah to bring him back to life, and my current research had just confirmed this, or at least, confirmed that it _does_ have to power to bring the dead back to life.

I had news about the location of the Tablet. A couple of days ago, the mummy of Ahkmenrah was transported from the Museum of Natural History, all the way to the British Museum.

I shut my laptop and exited the library, I walked up the three-story long flight of stairs to the first floor, and kept traversing my way up to the third floor, where Sadie's and Carter's bedrooms were.

I knocked on Carter's door, who let me in. He was wearing his linen clothes, which contrasted against his dark skin, his was still as skinny as ever, but had grown a lot in the past few years. Carter was taller than me, 17 years old, and was the most mature out of everyone who trained at the House of Life. Even more mature than me, and I was the oldest.

"Cleo! Have any news yet?"

I nodded, "Better let your sister in here before I say anything though."

"Sadie! Get in here!" Carter shouted, and the door adjoining Sadie's room to Carter opened up.

Sadie came in, a few years ago she used to have colored streaks in her once naturally blonde hair, now she went all out and dyed her hair completely in electric blue, which made her blue eyes so much more vibrant. Unlike her brother, Sadie was light skinned, taking after her dead mother, while Carter resembled his father, also known as Osiris, king of the Underworld… It's a long story.

"What's going on?" She asked, combat boots stomping into the room, with her hands on her hips.

"Cleo found us some details."

"Oh, goody! So where is the Tablet?" Sadie asked.

"The British Museum, and the Tablet does bring the dead back to life as well. So, all we need is to get there before Apophis' followers get there first."

Sadie and Carter shared a look.

"Uh-oh, the Museum isn't going to be happy to see us…" Sadie said.

"Why not?" I asked.

"Last time we were there, we… uh… sort of caused an explosion." Carter said.

"It was all dad's fault, of course." Sadie said matter-of-factly. "But I'll be so pleased to see Gran and Gramps again!"

"_You_ would." Carter grumbled.

Sadie rolled her eyes. "Come on Carter, they'd be delighted to see you as well. You did help save the world, after all."

"Not if these rebels bring Apophis back to life. We need to stop them first." Carter looked at me. "So, we need to get to the British Museum, and hope that they don't recognize Sadie and I, otherwise we won't be able to get in, and we need back up as well, so I suggest calling Felix and Alyssa and Jaz all back here, as well. And we should open a portal to get to the museum as soon as possible. I just hope that the rebels don't get the Tablet before we do."

"You worry too much, brother. Walt is on the task of tracking them down, and no doubt he'll tell us if something has gone awry."

"Right, but still, what if something has gone wrong?"

"Well, we'll still know, won't we?" I said, interrupting them. "I mean, Walt is hosting Anubis, right? So he's essentially possessed by a god, and I'm sure if something was wrong Anubis would contact you somehow, through your _ba_, or"- I looked to Sadie, -"You're still scrying for him, right? We would know if something was wrong."

Carter sighed. "You're right, of course."

I smiled, pleased. "Alright, so I suppose I should contact all the Scribes, then."

"Go ahead." Sadie said. I exited Carter's bedroom, and walked down the hallway, to my own bedroom, 4 rooms down on the right hand side. I picked up my mobile phone off my bed where I left it charging this morning.

I scrolled through my contacts, and sent a message to Jaz, Felix and Alyssa, the magicians who used to train with me at Brooklyn House, when Apophis had tried to destroy the earth. Now we had all grown up, and became fully fledged magicians, or the politically correct term: _Scribes_.

'_Need you to come back to Brooklyn house. We have a new mission. I'll fill you in on the deets when you get here.'_

I sat down on my bed for a few minutes, waiting for anybody to reply.

Almost immediately, I got a reply back from Jaz,

'_I'll be there in a sec.'_

I walked out of my room with my phone in my pocket. A doorbell rang, echoing throughout the house, and I heard Khufu grunting in baboon, and a door opening.

"Khufu!" I heard a feminine voice say.

"_Agh_!" Khufu said, which roughly translated into 'Jaz! I am very happy to see you!'

I ran down the steps to the first floor as quick as I could.

Jaz had changed a lot since the last time I saw her. She had cut her long blonde hair to a short pixie cut which framed her face beautifully. She was wearing a touch of makeup on her eyes and her lips, and she was wearing light skinny jeans and a black t-shirt, with a red plaid jacket tied across her waist.

She was leaning forward a bit and patting Khufu on the head. "Nice to see you, Khufu." She said. Khufu raised his hand to tug on her hair.

"I got a haircut! Isn't it great?"

"Jaz!" I exclaimed. She turned around to me.

"Cleo!" She stepped forward a couple of paces and embraced me in a hug. Carter and Sadie came down the stairs, and she ran over to greet them as well.

"Nice haircut." Sadie complimented her.

"Nice colour!" Jaz said, fluffing Sadie's hair. "Hey Carter." She hugged him as well.

When we all had our go at greeting Jaz, she looked around to me.

"So what's going on? Have you found out about the Tablet?"

I nodded. "We need to get going as soon as possible, but you're the only who's arrived so far. When everyone is here, we'll explain everything."

"Alright. Everyone should be here soon-"As if on cue, the doorbell rang again, and the door opened, and Felix stepped in.

He had grown taller, now 12 years old, and his hair had grown a lot. "Hey, guys. Alyssa should be coming soon."

"Excellent." Sadie said.

"Yep. So what's going on? Are we going to get the Tablet?" Felix asked.

"Yes, we are." Carter said. "As soon as Alyssa gets here, we'll explain things to her, and we'll get going."

Just then, Alyssa walked through the door, not bothering with the doorbell, which was all well, she had been the only one other than Carter, Sadie and I who had lived here all year round.

"Hey everyone, what's going on?"

"We're going to get the Tablet." Sadie said.

"As soon as that? And the other guys don't know that we're going after it as well?" Alyssa asked, she had known all about the Tablet, after helping me research for it.

"As far as we know, they don't," Carter said.

"Hang on," Jaz said. "I thought all of the rebel magicians were brainwashed, or something. Who did we miss that wants to bring Apophis back? Why would anybody want to after what had happened?"

Carter hesitated. "Well, actually, what they are going to be using it for is just pure speculation. We don't know if they are going to use it to bring back Apophis, but we do know that they used to be Apophis' old followers. What else would they use it for?"

"Do we know who it is?"

Carter nodded. "Yes. You remember Petrovich?"

"No." We all said at once.

Carter rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Well, what I think, and by that I mean, Sadie, Cleo and I, we think that Chaos is still conscious, and is whispering things to the most vulnerable, to bring him back to life, and giving Petrovich instructions to bring him back to life. We have Walt on his track, delaying him however they can, with the help of Anubis. But we haven't heard a word from him in a while."

"How long have you had him on Petrovich's case?" Jaz asked.

"A little under 2 weeks." Sadie said. "So we should get going right? We don't know how much time we have, and we should get the artefact before they do." Sadie said. She checked her watch. "I can open a portal now, if we get going."

"Better to be safe than sorry," Felix said.

"Go ahead, Sadie." Carter said.

Sadie started muttering a chant, and touched the black marble statue of Thoth, which was the closest representative of Egypt, which could be used as a gateway.

"_W'peh_" She said. _Open_.

The portal opened, and we all stepped towards it, then we were plummeting through the darkness- through the Duat- and in a matter of seconds, we had come out into freezing cold air. It was nighttime, snow covering the ground, streetlamps paving the way before us. I pulled my jacket tighter around me, not prepared for it to be this cold.

I looked around, Sadie, Carter, Jaz, Felix and Alyssa were all standing up. Alyssa looked freezing, only wearing jeans and a tank top, and Jaz was pulling her plaid jacket on. Felix was grinning, and I could only hope that he wouldn't try to summon a penguin here.

Carter and Sadie looked grim. They were looking up at something behind us, and I turned around and saw what they were looking at. The portal we had exited out of was located at Cleopatra's Needle.

"We'd better get going." Carter said, looking uncomfortable.

"Yeah," Sadie agreed. "It'll take around 20 minutes to get to the museum as well, if we walk. Not to mention that we'll have to break in."

"Cool!" Felix said.

"It'll be fine." I said. "Let's get going."

So, we traversed out way through the almost deserted streets of London.

There were a few restaurants open late, and we passed a couple of bars. We followed Sadie, who, since she had lived in England for 6 years before she came to Brooklyn house, seemed to know her way around.

It was nearly 20 minutes of walking before we arrived at the museum.

We looked to were the night guard's stall, which was empty. I thought this was odd, but if it made the break in all the much easier for us, then I didn't have a problem with it.

We crept across to the entrance. The door was locked, but that was no problem.

"Hold on." Carter said, before Sadie said the words to blast open the door. "Do you hear that?"

"What?" Sadie asked.

"Listen." He said.

And we did, and it sounded like there was some kind of party going on in the museum. The noise was incredible, but the strange thing was, it didn't sound like some kind of normal party. There was music playing, and now that I had noticed the sounds, light's flashing out of the window. Mingled in with the loud music was the sound of animals making noises. I heard the unmistakable sound of an elephant trumpeting, and monkey's grunting, and even a horse neighing, and other noises that I could not even put a name to.

"What in the name of Geb is going on?" Alyssa whispered.

"Only one way to find out." Sadie said, and before anyone could stop her, she muttered the words "_Sahad!" _The door was unlocked, and Sadie opened the door, and ushered us all in.

When we stepped inside, all the training I had at Brooklyn house could not have prepared me for this.

Inside, what should have been stationary exhibits, they were well… _not stationary_.

"What in the name of Ra?" I pondered out loud as a marble statue of a lion prowled past.

"I have got no idea." Carter said. "But we'll have to worry about this later. We came here for the tablet, so that's what we'll get. They don't seem to mind us anyway."

I nodded, although I was still a bit hesitant. I looked around and noticed that I wasn't the only one who was thinking _run!_

Nevertheless, we plundered on to the upper level of the museum, up the white marble stairs, searching for room 62 and 63- where the mummies lived, and where the Tablet of Ahkmenrah would be.

A couple of times we had almost got caught by the blonde, plump night guard who was trying to stop the exhibitions from breaking anything, which was good for us, since she was distracted from burglars trying to steal from her museum, but we quickly hid behind a marble column before she could see us, just in case.

Searching for the room of the mummies was easy. Getting in would be the problem.

Somehow in the midst of the shock that the museum exhibits had come to life, we had not realised that _all of the museum exhibits had come to life. _And that included the mummies.

Except they weren't like rotting corpses. These mummies looked as if they would have been in life, some thousands of years ago.

Carter cursed under his breath. 'Hide!" He hissed, and we back tracked down the stairs and his behind the wall where the mummies could not see us.

I looked towards Carter and Sadie, who had the most experience of stealing things from museums.

"So, what now?" I asked. "I suppose they won't just let us through if we said that we wanted to steal the Tablet of Ahkmenrah."

"Well, if they're Egyptian, maybe they'll have to acknowledge me as their Pharaoh, and do what I say?" Carter said, though he sounded as uncertain as everybody else at what to do next.

Sadie rolled her eyes. "Come on. They're mummies. What can they do? Besides, they probably don't even know what's going on around them, notice how the other exhibitions didn't even spare a glance at us? They probably don't even know that we're here."

"Hold on." Carter said, grabbing Sadie's arm as she started to make a move towards the entrance of the mummies. "What if they do know what we're up to? We need to make a plan to make sure this all goes through smoothly. We can't just barge in all reckless-like."

"Of course we can, Carter. That's what we always do." Sadie said.

"And most, if not all of the time, we almost get killed. We need to do this safely this time." Carter said, his voice teetering on a dangerous tone.

Sadie sighed in defeat, though she looked like she wanted to press the matter further.

"He's right, you know." I said. "What's your plan, Carter?" I asked.

"Well… I was thinking that… well, we do actually ask them about the Tablet. Except not that we're here to steal it. We talk to someone about it, and well… while they're not looking, we take it from them."

"Well, supposing that they are aware of what's going on around them, there's still the fact that it'll be a bit suspicious when they see 6 people walking up to them supposedly interested in the Tablet, out of museum hours, and… not to mention… that these are actual living mummies, and that the museum has appeared to come alive! Like, is nobody else freaking out about this?" Sadie said.

"Of course we're freaking out, Sadie, but it's not like it's the strangest thing in the world. Remember how Freek came to life?" Carter said. "We came here for one thing, and we're going to get it, no matter what strange things may be going on around us. So that's why we're going to do this carefully, and that's why only two of us will be going to get the Tablet."

"Two of us?" Jaz asked. "How?"

Carter sighed. "Well, like Sadie said, it will be suspicious if all 6 of us go to the exhibit, so we'll only need two of us. One of them will be me, since I'm the Pharaoh of the House of Life, the mummies will have to listen to me, and another person, who will go and get the Tablet, while I am distracting them."

"Who's that gonna be?" Felix asked.

Then he said the name of the person who we all didn't expect.

"Cleo." Carter said.

I almost yelped. "Me?" I asked.

"Yes. You're the least suspicious out of all of us, plus, you helped to find the Tablet. You're smart and you can talk your way out of anything, you know… just in case you do get caught."

I groaned. I would have to pull through with it though. I was no longer the 17 year old girl who didn't want to be caught in conflict, and I had learnt that sometimes it's unavoidable. And that sometimes you have to take risks. My mouth tasted metallic, but I tried to keep myself calm and collected.

"Right. So, you're… what, going to announce to these Egyptians that you are the new pharaoh of the House of Life, and then I'm going to get the Tablet?" I asked.

"Exactly. But if they haven't been caught up with what has happened with Apophis two years ago, I'm going to tell them about that too. Just so they know what they could be caught up in if this all goes horribly wrong."

I felt bile rise up in my throat, and my face was probably turning green right at that very moment.

"Not helping, Carter." Sadie scolded. "Cleo doesn't have to do this if she doesn't want to."

I sent a smile her way. "It's okay Sadie. It's right time I do something for the good of the world rather than just studying up on artefacts."

Sadie looked like she was about to say something, but Carter interrupted her. "Great. Let's do this. First, I'll go and distract them, then you go, while everyone is distracted, and get the Tablet."

Carter reached his hand out and it disappeared into thin air, and I knew he was reaching into the Duat. He pulled out his crook and flail, symbols of a pharaoh, and took a deep breath.

He looked at us, his eyes locking onto mine. "If anything goes wrong, use the boundary spell. You know- _Drowah_- the light will alert all of us and we'll sneak around to come and help you." Then Carter stepped forward into the exhibit.

We looked around the corner, peering into the exhibit, Carter had started talking, his words booming. He was quite a confident public speaker.

"Egyptians!" He called out. "Listen up. My name is Carter Kane, and I am the pharaoh of the House of Life."

He paused.

"Who says?" Someone called out.

"I do. You see this crook and flail; the symbols of a pharaoh. I am the Eye of Horus, and the Blood of the Pharaoh, descendant of the first pharaoh: Narmer and Ramesses the Great!"

"You upstart!" Another person called out.

Carter kept talking, and everybody's attention was drawn on him. His words did not seem to be very convincing, but it was only a matter of time before they would all believe him, and he would prove that he was the pharaoh.

With my back to the wall, I edged around the doorframe, and into the exhibition. All around was an Egypt scholar's dream. Sarcophagus were display, the cases were awry, as the mummies had supposedly crawled out of them. Jewelry, art and artefacts were showcased in glass cases, and right at the very back of the room was the 24 carat gold Tablet of Ahkmenrah.

My palms sweating, I walked over towards it, I could still hear Carter talking, taking a long time to describe all the events of what had happened from the day he exploded the Rosetta Stone two years ago with his sister and father.

I reached out my hand to grab it, but before I could even touch it, an arm took hold of my shoulder and spun me around, pushing me back into the wall. I let out a gasp of pain, and looked at my assailant.

"What do you think you are doing?" He spoke in an intimidating, harsh voice with a British accent. He had brown skin, though lighter than mine, and large green eyes flecked with brown. He was dressed head to toe in clothes I had only seen in pictures, except they were so real and so intricate that they might as well have been completely different types of clothing.

He wore a long kilt that fell this feet, called a _shendyt. _The majority of the crinkled fabric was mustard yellow, but the bit that hung in the front was a shade of lapis lazuli, which was embroidered at the bottom in golden thread. Above his kilt, he wore a wide golden and blue patterned belt. His chest was bare (and mind you it was a very _nice _chest), except for a layered collar, which was decorated with lapis lazuli, and coral (the gemstone, not the reef). He also wore a golden fabric that wound around his forearms and also somehow doubled as a cape, falling to his feet.

My eyes kept travelling upwards, he was half a head taller than me, and I locked my brown eyes with his. He wore a golden helmet, which covered his head, leaving only his features on display. He looked quite young, maybe in his 20's, like me.

I looked away quickly, his intense gaze frightening me to death. "Um- Well… I was going to…" I looked around. What was that that Carter had said? That I was good at talking my way out of tight spots…

"Steal the Tablet?" The man asked.

"No!" I exclaimed. "I just wanted to… study it. See, my friend, Carter, you know, the pharaoh, we uh… just wanted to study it, you know. Read the hieroglyphs, and stuff. I mean, pictures only give you so much details, that we wanted to see it in person!"

"And you couldn't wait until morning?" He asked skeptically, he wasn't leaning over me anymore, but gave me some distance. He had his arms crossed over his chest, although he was still in ridiculously close proximity.

"Um, no? Well, I'm here with Carter and his sister and last time they were here, they sort of caused and explosion at the museum… so you can see how it would be… problematic to get into the museum during the day. We had to sneak in." A half-truth. Half-truths were good when trying to talk your way out of something.

"Well, as the protector of the Tablet, I must ask-"

"Wait, there's a protector of the tablet?" I asked. Nothing in the books said anything about a protector.

"Yes… I, Ahkmenrah, fourth king of the fourth king, was given this Tablet by my parents to protect and guard the secrets of it."

I swallowed. "I-I see. So if there _was _someone who would steal it, to just say… bring a very deadly monster back to life. One that would swallow the sun and destroy the world, just say, you would not let anybody take it?"

"I would not allow anybody to steal the Tablet under my guard." He said.

I nodded. "Right. That's good to know. Also, does this Tablet have anything to do with the reason why all the museum exhibits have come to life?"

"Indeed it does." He said.

"Cool. Right, so I should be going now, so if you'll let me through-"

And then there was a bright beam of light shot up through the air.

"_You're magicians?_" Ahkmenrah demanded.

I cursed under my breath, and without waiting for him to move out of the way, I pushed him and ran towards were Carter had just performed the boundary spell.

Ahkmenrah grabbed my arm before I could go a step further.

"What?" I demanded, looking around helplessly where Sadie, Alyssa, Felix and Jaz were. Jaz was dragging Carter- who was unconscious- back behind the marble pillar.

He released my arm. "If I ever see you back here, I won't be so lenient."

I nodded, and I wouldn't have been surprised if I was turning green right at that very moment.

"Don't worry," I said shakily. "I'm not planning on it."

I turned and ran behind the pillar. Carter was sitting down on the ground, leaning on it.

Jaz looked up at me, while the rest of the group finished defending us from the ancient mummies.

Sadie looked at my empty hands. "What happened? Why don't you have the Tablet?" She asked.

Jaz pulled a vial out of her bag which carried all her precious healing potions and spells. She uncorked it and tipped a small portion into Carter's mouth, whose eyes opened immediately, and started coughing.

"Eurgh, disgusting." He commented. He looked around at me. "Did I hear that right? You don't have the Tablet?" He asked, eyebrows knitting together.

"No," I said. "But I think it'll be okay. I'll tell you about it when we get home."

Carter stood up on shaky legs, leaning on Jaz for support. "Alright. We had better get going then. The sun is almost up."


	2. We Do Illegal Things and No One Notices

**A/N: This chapter was a struggles. Turns out I have a really hard time describing buildings and interior. Well, I gave it a shot, and hopefully you can't tell that I had to look up adjectives for buildings for this, lol. Also I actually took it upon myself to try and translate the symbols on the Tablet of Ahkmenrah but then I realised that Google Translate can only take you so far so I gave up.**

_CHAPTER 2_

_CLEO_

_We Do More Illegal Things and No One Notices _

Carter had to rest, before I could do any explaining. Jaz insisted.

We caught the train and Sadie led us to her grandparent's house, at eight o clock in the morning, with 5 other people standing behind her, and Carter, who was leaning on Sadie as if he had just been caught in a very brutal fight.

When Sadie's grandmother opened the door, in her pajamas and fuzzy green slippers and saw all of us, I thought she was going to send us away.

"Hi Gran," Sadie said. "Mind if we drop by for a bit?"

Then, without waiting for an answer, she pushed past her grandmother, with Carter still being supported by her.

We followed Sadie and Carter through to the small living room.

Carter was sitting in the middle of a three-seater couch with his hands in his lap. There were two recliners adjacent to the one Carter was on, and Sadie had already occupied one.

"Well, sit." Sadie commanded, gesturing around the living room.

Felix raced for the other recliner, I squeezed to the right of Carter, and Alyssa on the left of him, and we all shuffled over a bit to leave enough room for Jaz to sit. It was a tight squeeze, and I was squishing into Carter's side, while Jaz squeezed in next to Alyssa.

Sadie turned to me. "Explain."

I tried to steady my breathing, everybody looking at me for explanations was something that I wasn't really accustomed to, I was usually the person who would research, and give the information to someone else privately, and they would then relay it to the rest of the team. But now that wasn't possible, I was put right to the front and center of the whole deal, and there was no backing out of it now.

"Well… see, when I was going to get the Tablet, there was a, um, guy there… to be specific, it was Ahkmenrah, he sort of… ambushed me."

There was a pause of silence, except for the sound of Mrs. Faust walking around to the kitchen to make herself coffee, grumbling to herself, though I was sure just a few minutes ago she had been eavesdropping.

"What do you mean he ambushed you?" Alyssa asked indignantly.

"He grabbed my arm, and sort of trapped me against the wall. I could have ran, but you know, I wanted to find out more. I mean, while everyone was looking at Carter, I found it kind of odd why he wasn't listening as well, rather than waiting at the Tablet… and then he told me he was the _protector of the Tablet_. Did anybody else know that that the Tablet was already protected?"

Sadie shrugged. "Well, it makes sense. It is called the Tablet of Ahkmenrah, right?"

"Yes, but this doesn't explain why we don't have the Tablet does it?" Carter accused.

I looked back at Carter, feeling quite vindicated.

"Well, he stopped _us_ from getting the Tablet right? I would be hard-pressed to see if Petrovich could steal it out of his hands." I explained. "He seemed very unlikely to step away from the Tablet of his own free will. He even threatened me if I ever came back there again."

"_He threatened you?_" Alyssa said dangerously. "I'm liking this guy less and less."

"I can't say I'm fond of him, either." I grumbled.

Carter didn't seem satisfied with my answer, and I had to admit, if I was in his position, I wouldn't have been either. We had come here to do one thing; to get the Tablet, and we had failed at that. And to be honest, I was feeling like a bit of a failure as well.

"But, there's still the danger of Petrovich getting the Tablet anyway. I don't like the sound of this Ahkmenrah, either. But there's always the possibility of something going wrong. But, if this guy is a danger, it's probably better if we didn't get the Tablet under his watch." Carter said. "But I won't be able to go to sleep at night if we don't have the Tablet. I just don't want to go through what had happened the last time, ever again."

Sadie looked sympathetically to Carter. "We all don't want to, Carter. But we can't place the blame on Cleo-"

"I wasn't-"Carter said.

"How about we think of a different plan then? So we don't have to steal the tablet?" Felix interrupted.

"What do you mean?" Jaz asked.

"Well, what if we went again later today, and try to come to an agreement with Ahkmenrah, so we could protect the Tablet without having to steal it!"

"Well, if a compromise is out best chance, then we'll have to take it." Sadie agreed. "But what was going on at that museum? All the artefacts had come to life. As far as I know, that doesn't happen at normal museums."

"Yeah, that was _weird_. Maybe it was some kind of magic?" Felix suggested.

"It's the power of the Tablet," I said, recalling what Ahkmenrah had told me the night before. "It has to power to bring things to life, right?"

"What, like anything in the vicinity comes to life? It's not directed to one certain thing, but _everything_?" Carter asked

"But some of the things in the museum were non-organic, like wax figures and marble statues and things. How is that possible?" Alyssa asked.

"I don't know." I said. "How do we bring _shabti _to life when they are just clay statues?"

"Point taken." Carter said.

"So, won't it be weird if we just waltz into the museum tomorrow and start talking to the exhibits? Even more important, how does everyone else not notice that the exhibitions are moving?" Alyssa asked.

I shrugged. "It might be a glamour, or something. Like how people don't realise that Carter is carrying a khopesh and mistake it for a baseball bat, or something."

"I think we should go _now_." Sadie said. "It's going to be the same if we go any other time, right? Let's just get it over and done with."

Strangely enough, nobody disagreed with Sadie, which was a first. I knew Carter was thinking about Petrovich, and he didn't want to waste any time trying to sort something out, and risk him getting the Tablet from under our hands.

Jaz stood up and started pacing around the small living room. "Right, so we go, try to talk to Ahkmenrah about the Tablet, but Cleo can't come because he is probably going to try and kill her if he sees her again. And then what?"

"Well, I guess we'll just have to see what happens when we go to the museum." Alyssa said, "Then we can think of what happens next after those events."

"I hate not having a plan." Carter grumbled.

Sadie scoffed, then stood up. "Probably better that we don't. I just don't think plans are our thing."

I scoffed. "Right, well I guess I'll just stay here or something while you guys go."

"You okay with that?" Sadie asked.

"Sure, you better make sure your grandparents are okay with it though." I said with a half-hearted smile.

Everybody else stood up, and Sadie told her grandparents that I would be staying here for a little bit, and _not to bother me under any circumstance. _I went to the door withCarter, Jaz, Alyssa and Felix, and Sadie joined us a few moments later.

"Don't get killed without me." I chirped.

"Wouldn't dream of it." Sadie said.

They went outside, where the sun was hanging in the grey sky, illuminating London. I went back inside. I wasn't really sure whether I should go greet Sadie's and Carter's grandparents-whether they would appreciate it or not-but I was imposing on them, so it did feel like the right thing to do.

Mrs. Faust was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a black coffee. She looked at me as I entered, her face showing slight irritation at my appearance.

"Hi, Mrs. Faust. I'm Cleo. Thank you for letting me stay here." I said awkwardly.

Her mouth twitched into an uncomfortable smile. "You're welcome. I can show you around to Sadie's room, if you would like?'

I nodded, wondering whether Sadie even wanted me in her old bedroom, even if we did get along rather well.

"I guess so." I said uncertainly. Mrs. Faust stood up and led me into Sadie's room. She opened the door for me, and waited as I stepped in her room.

"Make yourself at home." She said, standing at the doorframe.

"Thank you." I nodded, and she shuffled away, closing the door behind her.

I could tell that Sadie had not slept in this room for a long while, even though it had been kept immaculately clean by her grandparents.

I didn't feel quite comfortable in Sadie's room, even though her grandmother had led me in here, but it wasn't like I was going to start rummaging through all her things, I still felt like I was imposing her privacy just by being in the room.

There was a small television in her room. Her single bed had been made, with a white duvet cover decorated with multicolored hearts. Her room was postered with pictures from fashion magazines and bands, and a full length mirror hung on her wall.

There was a wooden desk running along the corner of her bedroom, opposite her bed, which had a cd player and a stack of cd's that I had never heard of before as well as unfinished perfume bottles littering it. Diagonally to the desk, was a bookshelf, though it was not filled with books, but rather with DVD's and old birthday cards.

I supposed that Sadie wouldn't mind if I watched her TV while they were gone. She wasn't one of those people who would kill you if you touched her stuff, and I'm sure that she would have wanted me to entertain myself while they left and did important things without me, because I had managed to screw things up when they (or rather, Carter) put me in charge of retrieving the Tablet.

I knelt down to her bookshelf and looked at the covers of the DVD's. Sadie had an array of rom-coms and chick flicks, and a few animated movies. I recognized the name of a chick flick she had, and pulled that off the shelf. I carried it to the desk where her TV was, and flicked the switch on at the power point, and turned on the TV and inserted the disk into the DVD player. I then clambered on top of Sadie's bed, resting my head on her pillow.

10 minutes through the movie, and I was struggling to keep my eyes open. Even though my body clock told me it was still afternoon (at least in Brooklyn), I had exhausted myself out with the events of what had happened at the British Museum, and before I knew it, my eyes were closed, and I was dreaming.

My _ba _had the body of an owl; the symbol of wisdom. As I spread my wings and flew through the surface of the Duat, going wherever my wings took me. Resisting wherever your soul needed to go was foolish, even if you didn't want to follow. Usually, wherever my _ba_ went wasn't anywhere important, I was hardly important in the goings on of Egyptian business.

This time though, my _ba_ took me to a place I recognized. It was daytime, the sky was cloudy and blue, and there was a gentle breeze blowing through the orange and red leaves.

I circled around a ginormous whitewashed building with white columns leading towards the arched entrance. The Brooklyn Museum was where Sadie, Carter, Walt and Jaz had stolen one of the three pieces of the Book of Ra, which held the key to reviving the sun god, Ra.

I had visited the museum numerous times, sometimes because I was bored and wanted something to do, and other times to figure out something to do with Egyptian magic that I wanted to learn about from the source, rather from textbooks in the library.

I glided into the museum, past all different kind of exhibits from different cultures and periods of time. My _ba _was drawn to the mummy exhibition. Now that I was where my _ba _wanted to take me, I had some degree of control of my actions.

I hopped around, invisible to everyone, looking around the exhibit. The 20 foot long scroll of the Book of the Dead was on display, something that I had studied before. Carter and Sadie had once used the Book of the Dead to get around the Underworld.

The exhibition was not empty, there were a majority of people looking around at the objects in glass cases, peering at mummy sarcophagi, and other ancient artefacts.

I noticed a scar-faced man looking at a sarcophagus of a mummy, reading the description on the plaque.

_Kahmunrah was indicted to ruling after his brother's mysterious death sometime in 990 BC. His reign was short-lived, only ruling for 2 years before he was succeeded by pharaoh Amenemope. Kahmunrah's brother, Ahkmenrah resides at the Museum of Natural History in New York. _Underneath it in smaller letters were the words:_ Written March 2009._

"_Vin tut." _He said quietly. It took me a moment to realise he was talking in a different language, another pause for me to realise he was speaking Ukrainian. And a second for me to understand what he said.

_He's here. _

I watched as Petrovich walked away from the sarcophagus of Kahmunrah. My _ba _started to fly away quickly, everything looking as if it were in reverse, reminding me of a video being rewinded.

When I broke out of the Duat, I woke up. The movie had been watching was now rolling through the ending credits. Even though my time dreaming didn't seem to have been that long, time travelled differently in the Duat. I turned off the TV and ejected the DVD, and put it back in its cover on the bookshelf, my mind preoccupied by what I just found out.

I sorted through what had happened. Something important was at the Brooklyn Museum. Not something, someone: Kahmunrah. I didn't know who he was, other than what I had read on the inscription. Ahkmenrah's brother.

And Petrovich had something to do with him. He wanted to get the Tablet and bring _him_ back to life, not Apophis. Why? What was so important about this Kahmunrah that he had to be brought back to life?

Whatever other questions I had were diminished when I heard the door knocking. The rest were back. I raced out of Sadie's room to the front door, as her Grandpa (who was awake now) opened the door.

Felix walked in, followed by Carter and Sadie. Alyssa and Jaz were nowhere to be seen.

"What's going on?" I asked. "Where's Jaz and Alyssa?"

"We've got to get going." Carter said. "There's been an ambush. Alyssa and Jaz have been captured."

My face went slack. "Right. Let's get going."

Carter looked towards his grandparents. "Cast some protections spells around your house. If anything or anyone breaks through, tell them you haven't seen us. No matter who it is, you hear?"

Mr. Faust nodded. While Felix grabbed me by the arm and we raced outside of the apartment.

"Where are they?" I asked. "Is it Petrovich's guys?"

We raced down the stairs to the lobby while Sadie explained.

"Yes. They've tried to stop us from getting the Tablet. We were able to get away, but Alyssa and Jaz were taken, as well as all of Petrovich's creepy minions."

"Where did they go?" I asked warily.

"They disappeared, Cleo. To the Underworld. The Tablet is a portal, but it's not like one I'd ever seen before. Alyssa and Jaz were almost about the pry the Tablet out from their reach, but then they were trapped. It happened so fast."

"They just disappeared. Rebels were with them, and we don't know where in the Underworld they are, or whether they are alive or not." Carter said.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"Back to Brooklyn house. We need to contact Walt and Anubis. We need to tell Zia and Amon about this." Carter said.

"But first we need to protect the Tablet." Sadie said. '"It's still at the museum. The museum exhibits were still just exhibits, they weren't alive or anything how it was last night. We need to translate the inscriptions on the Tablet."

Sadie led us to the train station to get us back to London.

The next train would be arriving in 1 minute and 37 seconds. Sadie pulled some coins out of her pocket. Why she carried around British money even though she was living in Brooklyn now, I had no idea. Maybe her grandparents and given her some money before we left.

Nevertheless, we got our tickets, and stood waiting for the train to arrive.

"There's something else." I said, everybody turned to look at me. "I had a dream while you were gone. I was following Petrovich around. He was at the Brooklyn Museum, and there was something important going on there. He was looking at a sarcophagus of a mummy called Kahmunrah. I'm not really sure what exactly was going on, but Kahmunrah is the brother of Ahkmenrah… I'm not entirely convinced that it's Apophis that Petrovich wants to awaken."

"Great. Somebody who we have no idea who he is or what he has done to warrant Petrovich to wake him up. Well, he'd probably be a terrible guy otherwise Petrovich wouldn't want to awaken him so badly." Carter grumbled.

The train arrived, and we all clambered into the carriage. There were some business men and women reading the newspaper, and some fashionable teenagers ready for some shopping in London. Other than that, our carriage was practically empty. The train started moving after a moment.

Even though the carriage was so empty, we spoke in a low tone, so not to alert anybody about what we were doing. You could never know when someone could be a monster in disguise.

"But do we actually know if this guy is a bad guy?" Felix asked. "All of this is just us guessing, isn't it? We should get our facts straight before we go in there."

"Well, who are we supposed to ask? We can't very well go up to Petrovich and ask if he is doing the right thing when his minions blasted Jaz and Alyssa into the Underworld." Sadie said.

"Well, I don't know. What if we went back and asked Ahkmenrah. He's Kahmunrah's brother, right?" Felix asked, looking towards me. I nodded his confirmation. "Well, we figure out how they come to life, and then when he does, we ask him about his brother. That way, we can get the whole grounds of why Kahmunrah could possibly be an enemy of the House of Life."

I looked at Felix, impressed.

"And we can ask him how to make the portal open up so we can get Alyssa and Jaz out. Felix, that's brilliant!" Sadie said. Felix's cheeks turned red.

We arrived in London in about 10 minutes. We hurried to the museum, and since it was free to get in, we didn't have to do anything illegal like sneaking in.

We followed the same path to the Egypt exhibit that we went last night, though it looked different with so many different people inhabiting the museum for the day, rather than the museum exhibits wandering around the museum.

When we got to the exhibition room, there were no signs at all that there had been a battle. Well, if you weren't a magician, anyway. I could feel the energy in the air that showed that magic had been in play recently.

"When the portal opened, I suppose mortals didn't see anything?" I asked.

"When do they ever?" Sadie replied, "Otherwise we would probably be locked up in jail every time we did any magic."

I laughed. I went to the back of the room where Ahkmenrah's Tablet was. I looked at the three sarcophagus before it, encased in glass. Shepseheret, Merenkahre, and Ahkmenrah.

The plaque said something about Shepseheret and Merenkahre being Ahkmenrah's parents, and they had been reunited after very many years of being apart. I thought about Kahmunrah, isolated from his family in the Brooklyn museum.

I cast the thoughts out of my mind and looked at the aged Tablet which was stored in a glass case, held up on a short podium. There was a chunk missing on the bottom left hand side, and bits at the top and side were gone as well. I was more interested in the nine pieces in the middle. Sadie came over to help translate them as well.

"Which do we start reading first?" I asked Sadie, peering at the hieratic decorating the edges of the tablet.

"You do the hieratics," Sadie suggested. "You're better at them than I am. I'll do the hieroglyphs."

I nodded, and got started, translating the symbols into phonetic sounds and then into English.

It took a long time to finish reading them. Carter and Felix, who had not learnt how to read much Egyptian, just looked around at the different exhibitions, trying to keep themselves busy, though I could tell they were getting impatient.

When we had compared what they said, it seemed that everything had come into place. Sadie and I looked at each other the same time.

"They all come alive at night time. Gee, I never knew Khonsu could be such a nice guy." Sadie said about the moon god, who she had once met before to gamble their _ren, _or secret name for more time to revive the sun god, Ra, back in the days of Apophis.

"Come on, we had better tell the others." I said.

Carter and Felix, who had noticed that we were no longer translating the Tablet came over to us. I had a feeling they had been watching us the entire time, trying to figure out when we had finished.

"What is it?" Carter asked,

"The Tablet was made to bring Ahkmenrah's family back to life, so they could be together forever." I said. "His father could not bear to die and live in the afterlife, probably, so with the Tablet, they could come back alive every single night, and die again in the morning. Khonsu blessed the Tablet with the power to bring the dead back to life every time when it came night time."

"Is that even _allowed_?" Carter asked, slack jawed.

"Probably not." Sadie said. "I suspect that Khonsu was feeling rather upset at Osiris at the time."

"Anyway, it had been night time when we came yesterday, so that's why everything had come to life, and why nothing was moving today. I guess that the powers extend to inanimate objects as well, since there were those marble lions walking around everywhere as well." I said.

"So, what, we gotta wait until night time until we can speak to Ahkmenrah?" Felix whined.

"That's what we'll have to do." Sadie said. "As far as we know, there's no kind of loophole that can make them come back to life before nightfall."

"So what do we do in the meantime?" Felix asked. I shrugged.

"Is there anything we can do about Petrovich at this moment?" Sadie asked, I wasn't sure whether she was asking me or Carter until I realised that Carter was looking at me for an answer as well.

"Well, if Walt is still on his case, there isn't. And he's probably going to the Museum of Natural History in New York at this very moment because he thinks that's where Ahkmenrah is-"

"Why's that?" Carter asked.

"That's where Ahkmenrah was before he came here. He'll want to check if the Tablet is still there before he comes here. Ahkmenrah is a new addition, apparently." I looked to Sadie. "Have you been keeping Walt and Anubis up to date about what's been going on? Just to make sure that he doesn't prematurely send Petrovich our way."

She shook her head, her face paling. "I could go do that now?"

"Yeah." I said and Sadie left to scry for her boyfriends.

Felix turned towards me. "Can we look around the museum?" He begged.

I looked at Carter, who was trying to suppress a smile, though I could tell he was worried about the safety of the Tablet. Truth be told, so was I.

My eyes flickered to the Tablet, and Felix noticed. "Oh, come on. Do you think somebody would be stupid enough to steal it during the day while everyone is watching? It's in a glass case that would probably go off if anybody tried to get their hands on it!"

I looked at Carter seriously. Anything could happen in the time that we were gone, I didn't want to leave the Tablet by itself when we were supposed to be keeping a look out for it.

"How about this." I said. "You and Carter can go, and I'll wait here with Sadie."

"Sounds good to me." Carter said, while Felix punched the air. "Let's wait till Sadie comes back, though."

Felix made a sound of disapproval, though he didn't try to push it.

Sadie came back while later. Felix was dragging Carter and I around the exhibition, showing us the different sarcophagi and artefacts.

"I spoke to them." She said. "They're still on his trail. They're trying to mess him up wherever they can. Don't ask me how they're doing it, I don't know, they won't tell me. But they'll make sure they keep him out of Britain, though. I told them about Alyssa and Jaz in the Underworld. Walt wanted to go there straight away to help them, but Anubis said they had to distract Petrovich first. After that, they'll do whatever they can to help Jaz and Alyssa."

I nodded, grateful for this news. "Great, while on our side, we're going to be waiting around the museum for closing time, then we'll finally speak to Ahkmenrah, and ask him what he knows about the Tablet. With Walt and Anubis messing up Petrovich, and his minions in the underworld as well, is there much else to keep a lookout for?"

Secretly, I wanted to explore the museum just as much as Felix did, a place with this much education and learning material? I wasn't following the path of Thoth for nothing.

We ended up taking as many tours as we could. They were a great time waster.

We arrived just in time for the tour of ancient Greece, where we observed all the ancient Greek art, and I noticed the marble lions I had seen last night, looking proud and majestic. After that, we were five minutes early to the tour of South Asia, learning about connected the different parts of Asia had been connected through trade, commerce and religion.

We broke away from the tours every two hours, to check that the Tablet was still in place, which, thankfully, it was.

Three tours later, my mind was reeling with all of this knowledge, some of it I knew, and some of it I didn't. Our feet were hurting like hell. Felix and Sadie were complaining about their sore feet, so we sat down on a bench for a while, which was something I was grateful for, though I still wanted to get out and join some more tours.

When it was thirty minutes to closing time, we hurried away into the boys' toilets. Sadie, now an expert magician, had practiced the magic of persuading a person to do something with only her voice, in this case, if we got caught, she would just talk to the person and say that they 'never saw us', and they would believe it and leave.

We hid in separate cubicles, crouching on toilet seats so our ankles weren't visible from the bottom of the door. It wasn't the most fun thing I had done today.

The night guard entered the bathroom after a time, flashlight blinking into the cubicles. The doors weren't locked, but were left slightly ajar, so unless the night guard opened the door, we would be done for. But I trusted Sadie to get us out of it.

She looked into Sadie's cubicle first, as planned. The night guard let out a yelp.

"Who are you? What's going on?" The voice was abrasive, but feminine.

"You haven't seen us in here." Came Sadie's smooth, velvety voice. "There's nobody in these toilets, and you're going to go outside, because there is nobody in here."

"Nobody in here…" Said the voice dreamily. She exited the bathroom.

"Don't come out yet." Sadie hissed. "She might be faking."

We waited a moment, and then Sadie came out. She looked out the door. "All clear. Come on!"

We all came out of the cubicles.

"That was the most disgusting thing I had ever done." Felix commented.

"No lie there." I said, eager to get out of the bathroom into some fresh smelling air.

The exhibits were wandering around the museum. We passed an empty suit of armor making our way to the Egyptian exhibit, which turned around to look at us.

It walked away from us, thankfully.

Mummies were staring at us when we entered the room. I guess they hadn't forgotten us from last night.

Ahkmenrah was nowhere to be seen, neither was the Tablet.

"Where is he?" I asked quietly, frowning. "Petrovich couldn't have taken the Tablet, could he?"

"He can't have." Sadie said. "Walt and Anubis said they were going to keep him off our trail."

Then we heard a voice behind us.

"Aha! There they are!" Said an echoing voice. "Grab them!"

I spun around. The suit of armor we had seen before was standing between us and the exit, and Ahkmenrah was standing beside him, with arms crossed, staring daggers at me.


	3. We Plan a Trip to the Underworld

**A/N: Not too sure about having Ahkmenrah's POV. If you haven't noticed, I'm trying to write similarly to Rick Riordan's style, albeit less comedic, because I'm not trying to imitate it. So that includes the P.O.V changes. I might just keep it as Cleo's though, and only use Ahkmenrah's if it's necessary, which might be not at all. Honestly I just feel like Ahkmenrah's POV should be in 3****rd**** person but I don't want it to be confusing with all the changes… ugh. I might just keep it as Cleo's pov. IDK, I'd like to hear my reader's opinion of it, if you wouldn't mind.**

**Also, I worry that I'm getting my Greek Mythology mixed up with my Egyptian mythology… there's an Underworld as well as the Afterlife in Egyptian mythology, right? Well, if it's in the Night at the Museum films, it's not that big of a deal if it's not, I guess.**

_Chapter 3_

_Cleo_

_We Plan a Trip to the Underworld_

"I told you to never come back here." Ahkmenrah stated dangerously.

The knight had a hand resting on his sword, ready to pull it out of its scabbard should the need arise. He had taken off his helmet, and was observing us for any signs of an attack.

Even in the armor, I could tell that he was muscular. He looked like a model, with long, shaggy blonde hair, blue eyes and tanned skin and a well-groomed beard.

Ahkmenrah gazed at us all, studying us. I watched him do a double-take when he saw Sadie's blue hair.

"Please, let us explain." Carter said quickly. His hands were raised, with his palms facing outwards, a signal of peace.

"Why should I?" Ahkmenrah asked. "You come here and attempt to steal my Tablet, and now you are here again so soon."

"Just hear what we have to say." He said. "After that, come to whatever decision you want to make, but please hear us out first."

The knight narrowed his eyes. "And how do we know that this isn't a trap or a distraction so you can steal the Tablet?" He accused.

"Well, I guess you don't, but if it is, feel free to chop off our hands or whatever it is you guys do to thieves." Sadie said, giving the impression that she couldn't be bothered arguing about this.

"Tempting," He muttered under his breath.

"If we wanted to steal the Tablet, we wouldn't have done it right when you're literally holding it." Sadie said impatiently. She wanted to get this over with just as much as I did.

Ahkmenrah sighed, probably deciding, it would be easier to get us out of his of my sight quicker if we could explain ourselves. He waved his hand. "Go ahead."

Carter looked vaguely startled, as if he wasn't expecting to speak without a verbal battle.

He composed himself. "Right, well, see there's this guy who actually wants to steal your Tablet and bring someone back to life. Two years ago, he fought on the side of Apophis when he tried to eat the sun and destroy the world."

Ahkmenrah frowned. "Apophis broke free of his prison? This is a lie."

"It's not. Me and my sister-"Ahkmenrah's eyes flickered to mine. I supposed he assumed me to be Carter's sister judging from my skin colour, but his eyes settled to Sadie's when Carter indicated to her. "- we revived Ra, but he was senile. Apophis swallowed Ra, but Sadie and I performed and execration spell on Apophis. Ra survived and Apophis was destroyed."

Lancelot turned towards Ahkmenrah. "What are they talking about? I don't understand just about half of the words they just said." He said quietly.

"I do, but I can't be sure if they're telling the truth or not." Ahkmenrah said darkly. He looked at Carter coldly. "I don't see what this has to do with the Tablet."

"I was getting to that." Carter said curtly. "There is a magician who was on Apophis' side. His name is Petrovich and he wants to use the Tablet to bring someone to life. At first we thought that he wanted to revive Apophis, so that's why we tried to take the Tablet yesterday to stop him from getting a hold of it," -Carter hesitated- "We decided that taking the Tablet wasn't the best way to go about it, so we decided to guard it while it was here, so we came again in the morning, but we were ambushed by Petrovich's rebels, and the Tablet opened up a portal and two of our friends got sucked into the Underworld, as well as the rebels. But now we have new information. It's not Apophis who he wants to revive."

"Who, then?" He asked.

"Your brother. Kahmunrah." Carter said bluntly.

To my surprise, he laughed. "My brother is in the Underworld. Larry Daley put him there himself."

"Who's Larry-?" Felix started, but I interrupted him. Whoever Larry Daley was, he wasn't important right now. What was important was getting Ahkmenrah to listen. I could tell he didn't like magicians, and whatever his problem with us was, he had to get over it.

"He isn't. He is at Brooklyn Museum, just waiting for Petrovich to get the Tablet and awaken him. I saw his sarcophagus."

He stared at me. I tried to keep the staring competition going, but I had to get him to understand. He opened his mouth, probably to accuse us of lying again, but I cut in.

"Look. We're not going to steal the Tablet, you understand? We just think that the Tablet needs protecting during the day. If you want the Tablet to be stolen, then fine. Go ahead and leave it without any protection. Be it on your own head." Somehow, I was becoming angry. We came all this way to London about a very real danger, and he was just about to turn us away? "We lost two of our friends trying to ensure that this lunatic Petrovich doesn't get the Tablet, and now we have got no idea how to get to them, and if you're just going to stand around doing nothing on the off chance that we could be lying about this well I don't know what to tell you, but if you think we're going to back down without a fight, then you're are _dead_ _wrong_."

"Cleo…" Carter started to say.

I could feel everybody's eyes on me, and I knew why. I wasn't usually one to lose my temper. I was cool, calm and collected. But I was losing my patience. My breath was shaky and my hands were trembling slightly.

"Aha! So it _is_ a fight you want?" Exclaimed the knight, completely misreading the situation. He drew out his sword.

"Lancelot, stop." Ahkmenrah ordered. _Lancelot?_

Carter's eyes flickered towards the gleaming metal of Lancelot's sword, ready to draw his khopesh out of the Duat should the need arise, but thankfully, it didn't.

Reluctantly, Lancelot shoved his sword back in its sheath, although he was glowering at me.

"So, just say I do believe you, what would you propose me to do?" Ahkmenrah asked.

I let out a sigh of relief. I hadn't jeopardized the situation with my outburst, and if I could read his body language correctly, he was on his way to coming around.

Carter spoke up this time. "We need to cast protection spells so that Petrovich won't be able to get a hold of the Tablet, so that it can repel enemies. Then we need to get a way to get into the Underworld to save our friends."

Ahkmenrah nodded slowly, weighing his options. "I can allow you to do the protection spells, but unless I know I can trust you, I cannot allow you entrance into the Underworld."

There was a cry of anguish from Felix. "That's ridiculous! If you need to give permission or whatever, then how come Alyssa and Jaz opened the portal?"

Ahkmenrah frowned. "It is not permission I need to give, it is a code. And that is exactly why I do not trust you. I wouldn't put it past you if you were Kahmunrah's allies yourself, and waiting for me to open the portal to the underworld so you could push me in."

My throat went dry. He was accusing us of being traitors now? I took a deep breath, trying not to lose my temper again. "The portal opened by itself. I don't know why and I don't know how, but my friends are gone. If you don't help us, we are just going to find another way, but we don't know how long that might take, and time travels differently in magical places, so for all we know they could be dead already."

Ahkmenrah's expression was unreadable. "You remind me of someone I used to know." He paused a moment. "There is a code you must use to open the Tablet.

"A code…?" Carter asked.

Ahkmenrah nodded. "I may enter the code under one condition."

"What's that?" I asked hesitantly.

"If you find my brother in the Underworld, bring him back."

"Um. Why?" I asked.

"If my brother is at the Brooklyn museum, then the Kahmunrah that Larry fought was possibly a statue created in his figure. If this Kahmunrah is trapped in the Underworld and is still alive, then the parts of his soul would be missing in his proper form, and the Kahmunrah in the Underworld would be only a primitive figure of my brother. If this Petrovich, as you say, does want to awaken Kahumunrah, he would not be functioning as a human being. Kahmunrah is whole in the Underworld and he won't be able to form properly if his soul is in the wrong body."

I nodded. I understood, pieces clicking together. The Tablet brought back the five parts of the soul into the figure, but they were inhabiting Kahmunrah's body in the Underworld, if we could keep them in the body in the Underworld, we could stop the real Kahmunrah from awakening.

"I see." Sadie said. "But if we bring him back, what's to stop Petrovich from getting hold of _this _Kahmunrah and just killing him, or something?"

"We'll make sure that Petrovich doesn't know, then." I said. "If he thinks that there is only one Kahmunrah, he'll won't know what's going on, and hopefully leave it be."

Sadie frowned. "I can see a lot of things going wrong with this."

"So can I." Carter agreed. "Look, we can't risk it. If we just leave him in the Underworld, then it'll be fine, right? There's no point bringing him back here just to create some more needless risks."

Ahkmenrah frowned. "But I need to see him. I need to- to talk to him."

"Is it so important that you have to put our lives at stake? No. If you want to talk to him so much, go down to the Underworld yourself." Carter said harshly.

I was shocked at how authoritarian Carter had become. He was usually a strict, rule-abiding guy, which was a good quality to have in a pharaoh, but in the past few years since he had become pharaoh, he had become a lot grimmer. His callousness towards Ahkmenrah surprised me, even though he was right in his viewpoint.

Ahkmenrah frowned. He was silent for a moment. I could tell he wasn't used to being spoken to so harshly, probably because he had once been royalty. "Maybe I will, then."

"Will, what?" Carter asked frigidly.

"Go to the Underworld, like you said."

I looked, wide-eyed, towards Sadie like, _is this guy serious?_ She shared the same look.

Who would _voluntarily_ go to the underworld?

Apparently the knight standing beside Ahkmenrah had the same idea. "You cannot be serious, man! I have heard many tales of the Underworld in my youth, none of them pleasant and you cannot be going there on the advice from these… adolescents! It is inadvertently a trap!"

I resisted the urge to mention that I was probably the same age as Ahkmenrah. My skin crawled when he mentioned that we could have been leading them into a trap, but I didn't say anything. I wanted Ahkmenrah to stay where he was just as much as the knight did.

"We don't have time for this. Just open the portal, so we can get going." Carter interrupted.

"No, I am going to the underworld whether it is a trap or not. I need to see my brother. You do not understand, I am his only chance of redemption." Ahkmenrah said with finality.

I didn't know what he was talking about. All I knew was that now he had the idea in his head that he had to get to the Underworld, there would be no talking him out of it.

"Fine," I said, before Carter could object. "You can come, whatever."

Ahkmenrah's eyes narrowed, wondering if I was lying.

Carter looked towards me, and I glared at him. I was tired of him thinking that he was the only one who could make decisions about things that concerned all of us, as well as the lives of my two best friends.

"Open the portal." I said, shooting my gaze back to Ahkmenrah.

"Wait," Sadie interrupted. "We should do the protection spells before we do anything else."

"And we need a plan as well." Felix said. "We all can't go to the Underworld while Petrovich is going to try and resurrect Kahmunrah."

"You're both right. Let's do the protection spells. Then think of a plan." Carter said.

Sadie's hand reached forward, her hand disappearing into thin air. Lancelot jumped backwards in surprise. She withdrew her hand, holding a curved ivory stick with hieroglyphs written on it, and four statuettes with head of different animals. A wand and the Four Sons of Horus.

"Witchcraft!" Shouted Lancelot.

"_Everything _is magic here, Lancelot. How many times do I have to tell you?" Ahkmenrah said impatiently.

He cleared his throat awkwardly. "Of course it is."

Ignoring them, Sadie handed one statuette to Carter, Felix and I, keeping one for herself.

"You know what to do." She said.

We moved off to different directions to place the figures at the four cardinal points. I muttered a few words in Ancient Egyptian, to trigger the spell when Sadie cast the spell to protect the Tablet to repel enemies.

We arrived back to the center of the exhibit.

"Make sure to leave the Horus figures where they are. They should be disguised to mortal eyes, so there is no need to worry about that." Sadie said.

"It's all set?" Felix asked

"Yep." Sadie said. "Now, who, apart from Ahkmenrah, is going to venture into the underworld?"

A part of me wanted to go, to go and find Alyssa and Jaz, but I knew that I didn't have enough experience. Sadie and Carter did, they had been to the underworld before, and they had saved the _world _before.

"If I may, it would be my duty to accompany Ahkmenrah into the Underworld." The knight said.

"Lancelot, I can't allow you to do that." Ahkmenrah said. "There are creatures that can kill you, things that even I do not know of."

"As a knight, I must do everything I can to serve you." He retorted. "I am coming even if you forbid me to it."

I frowned, pharaohs and English knights were from two completely different eras. These two appeared to be close friends, with a long history between them. I wondered how many other beings here had interacted with something or somebody else from a time and culture not their own and formed a friendship between them.

I looked around at the exhibit, where it was empty except for us. All the mummies that had been here yesterday were gone, elsewhere in the museum.

"Well, I see there's no backing you out of it then." Ahkmenrah sighed. He faced me. "You must come too."

My eyes widened. "Me?" I questioned.

"Yes, you need to help your friends as well, do you not?"

"Yeah, but… I've never been on a quest before." Honestly, he would be better suited picking Carter or Sadie. Or even little Felix, who was better at practical things than I could ever hope to be.

"You should go, Cleo." Sadie said gently. "It's your time."

My _time?_ "What's that supposed to mean?" I asked. Did Sadie know something I didn't?

"Just trust me," Sadie said.

I looked towards Carter who had an encouraging look on his face. Felix was smiling slightly, they were all urging me to go with these people, to save my friends.

"Well, if you want to get rid of me that easily…" I joked. A part of me wanted to stay here, and do what I always did, to help from the background, finding the location of artefacts, and other kinds of knowledge. But the other part of me, wanted to go. I had to prove myself, to show that I was more than just someone who stood in the shadows while everyone else was risking their lives without me.

"So it is settled then?" Lancelot asked.

"I suppose so." I said.

"Great." Sadie rubbed her hands together. "I should send a message to Walt now. Anubis would probably know more about the Underworld than any of us, anyway. He could give you directions, or something."

As soon as Sadie said the name Anubis, I watched as Ahkmenrah paused for a moment, processing what she had said. His eyes slowly trailed towards Sadie. "Anubis? He speaks to you?"

Sadie hesitated. "Yes. Sort of."

I pursed my lips. Sadie was preparing herself for the question of her relationship to Anubis. She had plenty of time to come to terms of her romance with herself, Walt and Anubis, that even though it was two physical bodies, it was a relationship with three different people, she knew that other people were confused about her relationship.

"The god, Anubis?"

"The very same." She confirmed. "Why?"

"I didn't think the god's usually communicated with mortals face-to-face."

"Well, it's not exactly face to face anyway. It's complicated." She said quickly.

"Do you _all_ speak to the gods?" Ahkmenrah asked.

"Sometimes. Not so much as often now as it was two years ago." Carter interrupted, hoping to detract Ahkmenrah's attention from Sadie. "Having Horus's voice in my head was not fun."

"You mean you follow the path of the gods?" Ahkmenrah asked, frowning.

"Yes. It had been inactive for several millennia until me and my brother started it back up again and recruited other magicians." Sadie explained.

For a moment, Ahkmenrah's face hardened, then almost immediately it smoothed out to one of polite interest.

"So you all follow the god's path?" He asked. "I'm guessing yours is Horus, then." He said to Carter.

Carter nodded. "Combat magic is my specialty. Sadie's is Isis."

"What about yours?" He asked me

"Thoth." I said simply, I didn't like the expression he had before.

He nodded, unsurprised.

"And you?" He asked Felix, who was looking down at his feet.

"I don't know yet." He mumbled. "I like snow though."

"Ah. Well, you'll figure it out one day."

Felix looked up, his face red from embarrassment.

"We're wasting time." I said suddenly. "Open the portal, please."

Ahkmenrah looked at me, then down to the Tablet in his hands. He tapped a series of patterns on it. Then suddenly, a great whirling vortex of black erupted into the floor, projected from the Tablet.

"I'll contact you when we find Alyssa and Jaz." I said. "Make sure you tell us when anything from your side happens as well."

"We will." Carter said. "Good luck."

I smiled at the magicians, and taking a deep breath, leapt into the portal beneath us, with Lancelot and Ahkmenrah following behind.

I landed on my feet, years of travelling through portals allowing me to regain balance while landing. Ahkmenrah and Lancelot, who had not had this practice, landed sprawled on their backside.

Ahkmenrah and Lancelot hasted to get up. I ignored them and looked around where we were. Some open clearing, though it was very dim and hard to see. Hard rock was beneath our feet, and the sky above us of void of any stars, moon or clouds. I couldn't see any source of light at all. I didn't know how I could be seeing anything at all.

Ahkmenrah helped Lancelot up, who was hindered by his armor, they both came to stand beside me.

"This is no realm of the dead." Ahkmenrah stated.

"No, but it is in the Duat." I agreed. "If we came out here, then everyone else must have as well. And there were monsters in here too. We should get a start on looking for everybody before they find us."

There was a sound of metal against metal, Lancelot had drawn his sword. "Who finds us?" He asked. His face looked green, as if he was going to be sick. I supposed portal travelling didn't agree with him.

"Monsters. Demons. Things like that." I said. "Not to mention Petrovich's minions."

"And Horus warriors." Added Ahkmenrah.

"Horus warriors?" I asked.

"Well, I suppose they're just a lot of Horus look-a-likes, but only used to do a magicians bidding. Kahmunrah summoned them out of the underworld when he was trying to take over the world before, but Larry fought Kahmunrah off and sent him and his Horus warriors here."

"I never heard of Horus warriors before." I said. "Was your brother a magician?"

"He was. He followed the path of Horus, just like your friend Carter." He said tersely. "Look, we should start searching for them now. Like you said. We shouldn't waste time."

I nodded, sensing that there was definitely something about magicians that he didn't like. I didn't want to press him any further about it, but I was curious. He would tell me when he was ready, hopefully.

Lancelot settled beside me, who, finding no use for it had sheathed his sword. I assumed him to be the actual Lancelot from the Arthurian legends, even though he was apparently fictional.

"So, we haven't formally introduced ourselves." He said throatily, turning towards me. "I am Lancelot, at your service." He extended his hand out to me and I took his hand to shake it, but he raised my hand and pressed his lips to it instead. I smiled awkwardly, and let my hand fall limply to my side.

"Cleo." I said.

"Your accent is strange. Where are you from?" He asked.

"I'm from Rio de Janeiro." I said shortly.

"You are Egyptian too?" He asked.

"No, I'm fully Brazilian. I just have Egyptian magic."

"Oh," He said.

We fell into silence after that. I was surveying the scenery, getting nervous. There was _nothing here._ Only the rocky floor and the sky of nothing. I wanted to call out for Alyssa and Jaz, but I knew better than doing that. There was undoubtedly some formidable enemy who would come charging for us if we made any kind of loud noise.

In fact, I kind of found it suspicious that we weren't being attacked right this very moment. I ran through the list of Divine Words I had memorized, preparing to speak them if need be.

"What's that?" Ahkmenrah asked, pointing ahead.

I looked up, squinting to where he was pointing at. I couldn't see it at first, but the longer I looked it seemed to form into a long, smoky winding river that ran ahead of us. I was ecstatic to see something, other than just an endless tunnel, and quickened my pace to get to it faster.

I stopped when I smelt the burning. It was not a river of water, but a river of fire. I knew this was enchanted water. We wouldn't be able to put it out, or climb over it.

I vaguely wondered if Alyssa and Jaz had managed to get through it, and how? I didn't want to consider the other option: that they didn't get through it.

But, when I looked across the river, I knew that they had gotten past it, because I could see them. Like looking through a glass wall, was Jaz and Alyssa, though they had their backs turned to me, I knew it was them. They were running away from something.

We had to figure out a way to cross this fiery pit. I had to save my friends.

**A/N: I'd like to see what my readers think in terms of relationships. I already have one minor relationship that I'm not gonna say because spoilers, but I'm torn between Lancelot/Ahkmenrah and Ahkmenrah/Cleo. But I'm also really feeling asexual aromantic Cleo. We'll see where the story takes me, but I'd like to see what my readers think!**


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